Articles, Learning to Surf

Choosing the right board

Keep the following tips in mind when choosing your first board ….

It is very important to have the right board when you learn to surf. Those thin, narrow rockets the pros are riding sure look exciting, but they are a disaster for learning the initial techniques. A common mistake the newbie surfer tends to make is to buy a short board with thin rails and a narrow tail. A flashy little surf board will no doubt look very cool while standing at the breach checking out the swell, but it tends to loose its appeal when it won’t support your weight and bog down and pitch you off with every attempt to stand. A short board will discourage and exhaust all but the most dedicated student, ruining what could otherwise be a fun learning experience.

Make it easy for yourself and go big, wide and thick!!!

Don’t buy a board for when you can surf or to fit your car or because it has a nice spray design on it or because it was cheap. Buy a board for now and that will give you enough flotation for easy paddling. You need Length, Width and volume (thickness). Length will give you paddling speed, so you could get into the wave earlier before the wave gets to steep or critical. This will give you more time to set yourself up for the rest of the wave.

Width will give you stability so if your foot is slightly of centre you will still be able to stay on your board and it also helps with catching waves easier.

Thickness will help the board to carry you when catching foamies or float through flat weak sections. The one worry about a bigger board is duck diving. It is a surfboard and not a duck dive board. There are ways to get around this and we will cover this in the next article.

What board should I look for?

Mini-Malibu

I would suggest a Mini-Mal or a long board for guys or gals up to 80kg. A mini-mal shape is similar to a long boards with full round noses and they’re usually between 7 and 8 feet long and 20 to 22″ wide and 2″ to 3″ thick. They are easier to paddle and will catch waves easier than short boards and the width make them fairly stable. These are the most popular boards on the market and are really hard to find second hand and if you can find one it will cost between R1200 – R2200. It has brilliant resell value and is in big demand when you want to move on to another board. New boards go for R2000 – R3000. These boards are nice boards to have in your quiver for those small summer days.

Long boards

These are surfboards over 9 feet and are nice and wide. They paddle fast and are stable. Long boards are what most surfers over 85kg should start out with. Most surfers stay on them because it’s great fun surfing on these long boards. You can’t beat a long board for paddle and glide. If you jump on a long board it will feel like you are sailing after a few strokes. It helps catching more waves and will help catching waves when surfing in crowded spot. You could pick up a second hand board up from R1000 to R2800. New Boards will range from R3000 – R3900 for normal boards and Tuflite boards will be in the R5700 range. I think the Tuflite long boards makes a lot of sense in the long boards, because it is lighter and stronger, so it will not break as easily and it performs a lot better.